I'll Have to Carry You, I Guess (aka: Helping Your Friend Move)
by clacker
Summary: Link gets knocked unconscious after a fight, and Zelda, disguised as Sheik, has to figure out how to get him back to camp by herself. (Link knows Sheik is a girl, but not that she's the princess) Set in a time loosely based on Ocarina of Time. Oneshot, but potential companion series in the future. Hints of Zelink


**Hello all! I wrote this based on versions of Link and Zelda that I've been thinking about for awhile now. It's VERY roughly based on Ocarina of Time. While this will be a oneshot, please let me know if you would be interested in more stories about these versions of the characters! :) This story takes place about halfway through my overall idea.**

"Link? Link! Snap out of it!"

It was no use. The dummy was unconscious. Zelda groaned. She knew she should be worried and upset that he was hurt. But at the moment, annoyance and frustration that her friend managed to get himself knocked out in the stupidest way possible dominated her thoughts.

"Why on earth would you think it would be a good idea to be fancy and try to flip that monster over your head instead of oh, I don't know, stabbing it with your sword? Your magic sword designed specifically to slay evil monsters!" she spat, exasperated.

She sighed, slumping against the tree the monster had whacked Link's head on, frustration fading to tiredness."I had to catch it before it ran away. I hope you're happy," she grumbled. They had just battled a small group of bokoblins, and while it wasn't particularly difficult to defeat them so they disintegrated into darkness, she was still tired.

"This is what you get for trying to show off," she rebuked halfheartedly. "Now I have to get you back to camp somehow." She would've brought the camp to him if the road wasn't just beyond the copse of trees they were currently in. No, she would have to take him back to their camp, deeper in the woods.

But how was she going to carry him? She couldn't just drag him. But she couldn't exactly sweep him off his feet either.

"This is why the princess is always the one that passes out and is carried around in the fairytales," she grumbled as she struggled to prop up the unconscious Link. "The stupid hero is too Din heavy!"

She managed to get him sitting up, just barely. Next she knelt down beside him and awkwardly leaned him over her shoulders so he was draped around her neck like a lumpy, green scarf.

"Alright, lift from the legs just like Impa made you do for hours and hours." Of course, that had been with balanced weights, not floppy, unconscious bodies.

Taking a deep supporting breath, she tried to stand. And immediately fell over.

"It's all the crap you carry around," she grumbled after propping them both back up again against their tree. In reality, most of what they carried with them was back in camp. Even Link's magic satchel he used to carry bombs, his boomerang, and his other weapons he didn't use very often had been left behind for their trip into town for supplies. But Link's sword, bow, quiver, and especially his heavy, metal shield made him too heavy and unbalanced for her to lift, much less carry a quarter of a mile over the uneven forest floor.

She rested her chin on her hand, pondering the situation. Clearly, she would have to remove his weapons and shield and carry them separately. But which to carry first, him or all of his stuff? She fairly quickly decided to carry him back first. He needed medical attention as soon as possible, and his weapons should be safe for a little while, even this close to the road. Besides, the master sword had a tendency to only be found when it wanted to be found, by whom it wanted to be found. Hopefully that would be enough to keep it and everything else safe while she carried Link back and gave him a potion for his head.

She removed his weapons and hid them in a nearby bush, covering them with loose branches and leaves. Then, she knelt to pick up Link again. She wobbled slightly as she did stood, but managed to avoid tipping over completely and concussing herself like her heavy hero.

"Ugh, why do you weigh so much?" she panted. "Are you secretly a Goron? Do you eat rocks for fun?"

She turned and begin her slow walk back to camp. It wasn't far, but carrying Link required more caution as well as a slower pace.

"All those years ago, when Impa put a spell on me to mask my magic and help disguise me as a Sheikah, she could have given me super strength, but nooo, I had to live the life of a normal Sheikah child. Why make life easier for me? It's not like life was tough back then. I had only lost the my parents, my home, my kingdom…"

She went on mumbling like this as she walked back. She didn't really mean it. She was very grateful to Impa for all she had done, and knew that growing up as a Sheikah without any special abilities had been good for her, but she felt particularly frustrated, and all of her other frustrations seemed to bubble up in response. So she vented. She never got to talk about this to anyone, much less Link.

How badly she wanted to tell him. He already knew some of the story, or at least a semi-accurate version. He had worked out pretty quickly that she was a she, not a he. Not a surprise; her disguise as a boy really only worked if she barely spoke and didn't stick around long enough for people to think too hard about it. He'd eventually figured out that she wasn't a Sheikah, just disguised as one, and was surprisingly okay with it. In a world where anyone could be a spy for a tyrannical king, keeping your identity hidden wasn't exactly uncommon. She'd told him that she was a member of the royal court, hiding from Ganondorf (true), but hadn't met him when he visited as a child all those years ago (lie). When he asked if she knew anything about Princess Zelda, she'd told him she'd known the princess as a child (technically true), but she had no idea where she was now (ha), only that she was alive.

They had traveled together for a long time now, ostensibly so she help him improve his hand-to-hand combat, though she had little left to teach him at this point. Unlike her, he picked up hand-to-hand combat very quickly. Only seven years of daily practice and discipline had made her as skilled as she was. Link hadn't surpassed her yet, and probably wouldn't for quite a while, but it came more naturally to him than it had to her. That was how archery was for her, almost instinctual. In contrast, archery took Link quite a lot of effort and practice. He was good enough to get by, but it wasn't natural to him like it was to her. Magic had been the same way, when she was young. She missed it now. She missed it a lot, actually. It would have made it a lot easier to transport heavy things.

Now they traveled together because they were friends. Probably best friends. And friends you could trust were rare in Hyrule now. They didn't talk about it much, but they both knew they would have to split up once Link finished restoring the master sword and had to go through his final tests to fully awaken the triforce of courage. But for now, they wandered Hyrule and visited various dungeons, helping people as they went. Link was determined to force her to visit his home and meet his adopted family and childhood friends before they parted ways.

"You'll love them! My mom makes the best food ever, and my sisters will adore you!"

He would go on like this, telling her about his family, and sometimes about his friends Malon and Ilia. Last he heard, Malon was engaged to a farmer, the son of a former soldier who had gone into hiding once it was clear Hyrule had fallen to Ganondorf.

"I have to check him out," he would say. "Make sure he's good enough for her." Which would make her roll her eyes and laugh at him. Sometimes she would wonder if he ever had feelings for either of his childhood friends. Then she would remember that he would find out the truth about who she was eventually and would probably hate her for lying to him for so long, so it didn't really matter. She wouldn't allow herself to think he would forgive her. Better to keep her expectations low and minimize disappointment.

She picked up the pace now. She needed to get him back to camp.

Once they were back, she tried to set him down as gently as possible. What really happened was more of a controlled fall off her shoulders and onto the ground.

The first thing she did after reaching over to place his bedroll under his head was stand up, raise her arms above her head, and stretch her back out.

"You better not make me do that ever again," she muttered, rotating her sore shoulders.

With that, she sat down again and began rummaging through his medicine bag for a potion. His mother was an expert healer, and her potions had saved Zelda's life. She massaged her aching side, mostly healed now, as she pulled out the potion she was looking for.

"This should work," she said as she popped open the bottle. She turned to Link and propped him up against her, and poured the potion down his throat.

Once she had rested for a few minutes and was sure he was stable, she went back and grabbed the left behind gear. It was amazing how much faster the trip was when she wasn't carrying Link.

When she returned and dropped the weapons (she was too tired to be more careful), Link stirred and cracked open his eyes.

"Who's that?" he slurred, squinting at her in confusion. "Where's your face?"

She looked at him, confused, until she realized she still had her scarf covering her nose and mouth and had her hair hidden. She removed the scarf, uncovered her hair, and let her golden braid hang over her shoulder.

"Link, it's just me. Don't worry."

"Heeeey!" he drawled, a goofy grin spreading across his face. "Sheik! It's you!" he said, pointing at her.

She tried not to smile at the effects of the potion, forcing a serious frown on her face and kneeling down beside him. "How are you feeling? How's your head?"

He blinked, then reached up to touch his head, frowning. "Oww! It hurts. Why does it hurt? What happened?"

She covered him with a blanket and started a fire to warm up some food while she told him what happened. When she got to his dramatic flip and fail, he winced.

"Wow. That was dumb. Why did I do that?"

She laughed. "I have no idea. It was really stupid plan." Her frustration had dissipated awhile ago, and now she was just happy he was okay."Your face the moment you realized it was all going wrong was priceless. I won't let you forget about this whole situation for awhile."

She finished telling her story, and put some leftover soup on the fire for dinner. He was silent while she prepared dinner, and she thought he might have fallen back asleep. But when she turned around, he was sitting up against a large, flat rock near where he had been laying, watching her.

"When did you move?" she exclaimed, almost dropping the bowl of soup she was filling.

He grinned weakly. "I learned sneakiness from the best." He seemed less loopy now, more tired.

"Aww, you're so sweet!" she teased.

"Oh, this is awkward," he winced in mock embarrassment. "I was actually talking about Impa."

He laughed as she threw a hunk of bread at him. "Kidding! Kidding! You are the queen of stealth. Truce!"

She eyed him suspiciously, armed with more bread and attempting to be serious, but failing. She finally laughed and dropped the bread. "Truce."

She walked over to him and handed him his soup and sat down beside him against the rock with her own food. It had grown dark, and they sat in comfortable silence, eating their soup. After awhile, he reached over and tugged her braid.

"Hey, thanks for taking care of me. It really means a lot."

She shrugged, but smiled, looking down at her bowl. "It's not really that big of a deal. Of course I wasn't going to leave you there. You would've done the same for me. You have already, actually."

He smiled, but remained serious. "I mean it. You literally carried me back here." He reached over, touching her cheek with his rough fingers and turning her face to look into her eyes. "Thank you."

Her blush was hidden in the firelight, and she smiled. "You're welcome."

He pulled his hand back and they turned to look at the stars. It was a new moon, so they were particularly bright and clear. She leaned her head on his shoulder, he shared the blanket, and they talked quietly into the night. Before she fell asleep, she was vaguely aware of him kissing the top of her head and whispering something into her hair before resting his own head on hers. They fell asleep under the stars, in the light of the dying fire.

 **Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :)**


End file.
